Page 97 of The Fall
My stomach lurches, and Blair’s ragged words replay:I learned my lesson about trying to save people from themselves.
Oh God. OhGod.
Three nights ago in Columbus, I sat at that bar with a vodka burning in my hand, ready to let everything go, ready to stop fighting the undertow… and he was there.
I was hunched over that drink like it held all the answers, and he stood a few stools down, shoulders braced, eyes finding mine in the mirror and not moving. How he stood there. How his eyes fixed on my hand, on the glass, on the booze. That night, a dark history walked into that bar wearing my face.
I was a road marker: mile one. The start-point, the slow slide. A family picture with one face missing. For him, it was October all over again.
Every time Blair looks at me, what does he see? Wasted talent and borrowed time? Someone bent on self-destruction? A young hockey player with more talent than sense, drinking too much, isolated, throwing away every chance?
Cody and me, two kids drowning in the same ocean at different times.
I drop my forehead to my knees, trying to stop the room from tilting. There’s bile climbing up my throat. This is why Blair can barely look at me. Every interaction, every time I fuck up on the ice or show up looking like death warmed over, I’m forcing him to watch his brother die all over again.
He’s already given up on himself, Blair had said.
The phone screen dims, but the image of a smiling boy I’ve never met is burned into my mind. A face from a phantom memory, a name that now feels like a scar. Twenty-two years old, nearly the same age as me.
I think about Blair having to identify his brother’s body?—
I lean forward and breathe. Sweat wicks along my spine.
He thinks I’m another brother story with a different jersey. Another funeral waiting to happen.
I rub my temples with the heels of my palms until stars crowd the dark. A beat drums there, steady and mean. I want theold cure; I remember the way the ice clicked when I lifted my glass. I want that numbing slide, the way the margins blur until everything forgives me. The craving comes quick and clear, and that’s the problem sitting up and waving its little flag.
The vodka, the isolation, the way I show up to practice already defeated; it’s all been one long goodbye. And now I know why Blair watches me like he’s counting down days on a calendar. Every time he looks at me, on the ice, in the room, in that mirror, Cody’s ending is stamped over my choices.
If Cody had half—no, even a quarter of his talent?—
I push the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars burst. The worst part, the absolute worst part, is that he’s not wrong.
Hedoessee me; that’s the problem. He sees me too clearly. He sees exactly what I’ve been: someone determined to destroy himself. I was ready to let go. I was so tired of fighting the undertow that drowning seemed like mercy.
Cody’s face floats behind my eyelids—young, grinning, gone.I learned my lesson about trying to save people from themselves.
I think about Blair standing in that hallway, fury and grief tangled so tight in his voice that Hayes couldn’t untangle them. The way his voice cracked on his brother’s name. The way silence fell after. He watched his brother fight and lose, watched him spiral until there was nothing left to catch. Every morning I show up hollow-eyed, every time my hands shake, every glass I reach for: it’s October for him.
It doesn’t have to be, but wanting not to be something and actually changing—those are different things entirely.
My knees protest when I push myself up. I am not Cody Callahan. I am not going to be Blair’s second October.
Practice starts in twenty minutes.
Twenty-Three
The rink is empty,nothing but ice and silence and the sharp scrape of my blades. It’s early, still too deep in morning for the world outside to stir, but I like it like this. The ice is mine at this hour. No whistles. No shouting. No traffic on the boards or pucks slapping against the glass.
I glide once, twice. The ice catches, then gives.
This started as a way to scrub myself out of my own skin. My self-pity has festered for far too long, and out here, alone, there’s no space for that. There’s only edge, repetition, sweat. There’s nobody to fuck up in front of, nobody to disappoint.
Eyes forward. I lean into muscle memory, into the work. Back to basics, and focus on the little details. Pivot. My edges bite deeper, faster, harder. I push against the burn, lean into the outside edges.
I’ve been running these lonely drills every morning, untangling the mess that’s packed deep into my psyche. The ice holds my confessions, each cut a conversation between me and what I used to be. My breath clouds in front of my face. I’m a glide ahead of failure.
My blades speak for me. Left crossover: I ask Blair what he needed from Cody. Right crossover: I tell him I’m trying to bethat for him now. Straightaway: anger rolls in, hot and heavy and hard. Corner: shame seeps in, and I begin again.
